In the little car
by wread
Summary: This was a bad dream I had.


I sat quietly in the little car, listening. It was an overcast day but the outside of the windows were smeared with stuff; brown stuff, and also some silver stuff that looked like paint. A plastic bag was stuck to the right rear passenger window. You could not see anything through these windows, which was just as well for now. I knew what was out there. A big black pickup truck, for one; right in front of us. Plus other things.

Two women were in the car with me. One leaned against the front passenger door, asleep. The other was behind me, not asleep, but holding still and listening just like I was holding still and listening.

Suddenly a third woman was in the car, getting into the right rear passenger seat. She looked familiar – had she gone to school with me? Dyed blond bob haircut, striking dark red lipstick. Also some red stuff splattered on her. Not hers, I hoped.

"How did you get in here?" I asked. She certainly had not opened one of the doors.

She said something about the trunk that I did not understand. Had she crawled through from the trunk? That could be done in some new cars, I thought. In any case, she spoke and was calm, and she seemed more awake than the other two women. I had this memory that she was a sensible girl. Maybe an arty type?

"We're going to go," I said, and started the little car. I rammed the pickup truck, hoping to push it out of the way. I turned the windshield wipers on and was surprised to hear the pickup start up as well, backing up. There must have been someone sitting in there too. With the pickup out of the way it was clear in front of us and we went.

"Watch this one up here," I said over my shoulder to the woman who had appeared in the back seat. The woman in the passenger seat was still asleep. Certainly she must have been awake recently, because she must have gotten into the car, although I had not seen that. "If she starts to change, hold her until I can get the door open and get her out."

"How do I do that?" she asked.

"Maybe something around her neck?" I suggested, eyes on the road. The windshield had cleaned up pretty well. That was good because there were cars stopped here and there on the road.

"Like what?" asked the woman with the lipstick. I left it at that. There was only so much you could do.

We got to a bunch of buildings; probably a big city high school. I'm not sure what became of the other two in the little car. I was walking with the lipstick woman through the halls. There were a lot of people in the school. We went into a teachers lounge, where a teenage boy was eating coffee creamer powder. The woman sat at a table and got out her lipstick, freshening it up. Her lipstick was the exact shade of the stuff that had splashed on her, as though she were accessorizing. That was pretty funny, I thought, but I did not say that to her. Probably she would not think it was funny.

I left her there and walked down the hall. A disheveled man with curly hair came up to me and pushed a stick into my hand. It looked a like a stick off of a tree, or maybe a big root. "I need you to take over for me here," he said. His words came in a rush, like he was in a hurry. He took my shoulder and turned me to look through a window. It was a second floor inside window overlooking the basketball court. Small groups of people sat here and there on the floor. "If someone needs you, they'll wave up here. Go down and help them. We do it over there," and he pointed to something in the far corner of the basketball court. Maybe a mattress?

Then he was gone, and the stick was in my hand. It wasn't really heavy enough for the job. Right away, a man stood up on the gym floor, looking up at the window and waving.

I went down the stairs and out onto the gym floor. There was a few people in this group, mostly sitting on the floor. The other groups did not seem to be paying attention. The man indicated a little boy, just a toddler, with a big head and a mop of dark hair. The boy was quiet. I didn't look too closely. I lifted the stick.

"Are you just going to do it here?" asked another man.

"I don't really have a method," I said. I thought a second. "But maybe we should go over by the door. It will be easier to clean up."


End file.
